


don't jump where I can't catch you

by redrobin1989



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang is Very Not Happy that his friend is so reckless with his life, Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, Found Family, Gen, he almost fell to his death three (3) times, or maybe I'm reading too far into this, passively suicidal zuko, that is not an emotional stable child, the life Zuko may feel is worthless but Aang holds in such high loving regard, this is where I believe Zuko stopped being an outsider and properly became part of the group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 21:33:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redrobin1989/pseuds/redrobin1989
Summary: “I don’t care,” Aang pronounced suddenly, “about Azula or how she found us. I care,” he turned around and the anger in his normally passive grey eyes bored into Zuko, “that Zuko almost died for no reason at all.”Aang takes issue with Zuko's obvious lack of regard for his own safety.





	don't jump where I can't catch you

This was a familiar feeling, trying to outfly the fireballs being thrown their way, one Sokka really hadn’t missed when they’d been undercover in the Fire Nation. Still this time felt particularly harrowing, not only did the surprise attack force them to split up their group, and when they’d just gotten Dad back, but also… Sokka discreetly slid his eyes over to the newest member of their group as if to confirm that he was safe in the saddle and not in a million broken pieces at the bottom of the mountain. 

So he and Zuko were sort of, kind of friends now after their whole prison break bonding experience. Now he’d known, from the day he’d first met the prince at the South Pole that Zuko was a reckless idiot but today’s stunt had been insane even for him. First the guy rushed out to take on the whole spirit blasted armada by himself, fighting his homicidal sister and then got himself blasted into the air hundreds of feet above the ground. He knew the main reason Aang had insisted on storming the armada was to grab Zuko but Sokka’s still kind of reeling from the fact that Zuko would have fallen to his death if they hadn’t gotten there at just the right time.

Speaking of Aang, he was sitting up at the front steering the bison away from the crumbling air temple. He had his back turned to them but Sokka had suffered through enough cold shoulders from Katara to know that his friend was mad. 

“What was that, Zuko,” Aang finally ground out once they were safely out of firing range and were able to slow down to a more reasonable speed and altitude. 

“Yeah, _Zuko_, how did Azula know where we were hiding?” Katara asked, her face twisted with anger. He hated how much she looked like Azula in that moment.

“She probably was able to follow the trail we left from the warship, it’s not exactly easy to sneak around in a flying metal ship,” Sokka immediately defended. Katara’s suspicions and jibes against the firebender stopped being amusing the moment he realized how serious she was. “They were bound to find us eventually, it’s dangerous for us to stay in one place too long, it was best we moved on.” Katara glared at him and he glared right back. Zuko, all the way in the back of the saddle, looked uncomfortable as he usually was as the center of attention.

“I don’t care,” Aang pronounced suddenly with that same hard, barely controlled voice that silenced them all, “about Azula or how she found us. I care,” he turned around and the anger in his normally passive grey eyes bored into Zuko, “that Zuko almost died for no reason at all.”

“I didn’t, obviously,” Zuko said with an eyeroll, crossing his arms protectively over his chest as he slouched against the saddle.

“Not for lack of trying, bud,” Sokka said. “I’m with Aang on this one, that was stupidly dangerous, emphasis on_ stupid_.” 

“Someone needed to distract Azula and her entourage while you guys escaped, unless you wanted to see another Air Temple destroyed,” Zuko shot back.

“Okay so after your oh so brilliant plan how were you planning on getting back to us?” Suki asked with a frown while Toph turned her unsettling blank stare in Zuko’s general direction.

“I’d have managed,” the prince said curtly before sneering a little bit towards Katara, “I am, after all, an expert in hunting down the one hope for the world.” Sokka twisted his lip, uncomfortable with the self-deprecating tone in the other’s voice. Zuko’s never been a well of emotional stability but he’d seemed even more off-kilter since the Boiling Rock. 

“Stop that,” Aang commanded once again causing everyone else to quiet. Looking again, Sokka realized that his friend wasn’t just angry, he’s _furious_. The tight shoulders, the short, clipped sentences, the refusal to look at any of them. Sokka hasn’t seen him like this since the desert or that time with General Fong or even all the way back to the Southern Air Temple. It was easy to forget how scary Aang could be when he was angry, even without the Avatar State.

“You should try and stay as much in the clouds as possible, that should give us some cover. Also don’t fly in a straight line, those airships can’t move very fast or maneuver that well-” Zuko offered, obviously trying placate Aang before he was interrupted.

“Why didn’t you ask for help? We would have backed you up against Azula,” Aang asked.

“I could take her,” Zuko retorted and Sokka raised an eyebrow at that, pointedly not saying anything but screaming with his body language his thoughts on the matter.

“But you don’t _have_ to it alone, not when we’re here,” Aang stressed but Zuko just scoffed and looked out into the open sky. “Look, I don’t want to see the temple being destroyed but what if you had died Zuko, then where would we be?”

“You’ve got the firebending basics down pretty good and you’re disciplined enough from the other elements to build from there,” Zuko shrugged. “I taught you enough to get through the rest of the war, you could find a proper master afterwards.” Sokka stared at Zuko, everyone was staring at Zuko, even Momo had stopped rummaging through the bags to look at the Fire Prince. How-how do you even respond to that? How do you counter such a terrible scenario that Zuko had _very clearly_ given thought to? Even Katara looked a little sick. 

“Do you know what I think Zuko?” Aang asked steadily after an awkward, silent few minutes of flying, “I think you’re being selfish.” 

“What?” Zuko snarled but at least he looked a little livelier.

“I think you’ve made mistakes in your life, mistakes that haunt you and you’re scared you won’t be able to overcome them. So instead you throw yourself into dangerous situations not caring if you survive thinking that an honorable death will somehow redeem you.” Aang continued, not giving the firebender an inch as he tore into his soul. And it made a disturbing amount of sense, between his Angry Ponytail phase and his choice in Ba Sing Se and, spirits Sokka was such an idiot, his old girlfriend risking everything to save them just a few days ago, Zuko had to be drowning in guilt. “100 years and firebenders are just as crazy. Why can’t you see that dying won’t do anything but hurt the people around you.”

“You don’t know anything,” Zuko snapped, pushing himself further against the back of the saddle, away from them and Aang’s hard hitting words. 

“While I was in the that iceberg, the Fire Nation took everything from me. My people, my entire culture was eradicated leaving nothing but bones and ruins,” Aang said softly but with a heavy weight to it. “I woke up to a world where I had _no one_, I was forced to rebuild my family from nothing.” 

Aang turned around again, his eyes were still steely but they were wet with unshed tears and almost pleading. “If you let yourself die then you’d be fulfilling the Fire Lord’s will to destroy my people. I’ve already lost so much Zuko, please don’t take any more of my family away from me.”

Of course, Sokka should have realized: the desert, General Fong, the Southern Air Temple, all times when Aang let himself get angry was when someone he loved was hurt. And sure he, Katara and Aang were a family, Toph had kind of forced her way in and Suki was still new but Zuko had felt like an outsider from the moment he’d shown up at the Western Air Temple. Except to Aang who’d welcomed Zuko almost from the start. Count on the Avatar to cut through all surface problems and bring the four nations together; maybe he really could save the world in a way that really counted.

Toph was the first to move, crawling over from her spot near the front towards the back, flopping a bit aways from Zuko but close enough to reach out to (or punch) if desired. Suki cuddled closer to his side while Sokka stretched out his other arm along the saddle’s railing, his fingertips brushing the sleeves of Zuko’s shirt. Zuko himself looked ruffled and confused, as if it was a new experience for people to care about him and_ not _want him to die. At rate things were going, Aang wouldn’t need to fight the Fire Lord because Sokka was going to challenge the whole royal family for their treatment of Zuko before he came into their care. 

He’d learned long ago that families are weird and very hard. They stressed you out, make you laugh, made you cry; you showed them all your vulnerable bits and you trusted in them not to hurt you with it. But families, real families, will always be there to lift you up when you’re down, to catch you when you fall. Flying away from yet another attack, Sokka can’t help but fell that, for the first time in a while, Team Avatar felt like home again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was just really concerned with Zuko's mental health in the Southern Raiders and wanted to write Aang getting angry, the two ideas married and this was the baby they had


End file.
